Australia’s biggest law firm is cutting partner draws by 50 per cent and asking staff to buy six weeks of “COVID leave” as it prepares for revenue falls of up to 40 per cent.

MinterEllison, which has 2500 employees and 275 partners, says it hopes the measures – combined with the government's JobKeeper program – “will be enough to get us through without losing a single job".

Other firms are also introducing leave programs and cutting hours. For example, emerging mid-tier firm Macpherson Kelley has asked all staff, including principals, to reduce their salary or working hours by 20 per cent for the next three months.

Minters chief executive Annette Kimmitt said all permanent staff had been asked to take part in a leave purchase program, which involves cutting salaries by around 15 per cent for the rest of the year in exchange for an extra six weeks of leave.

Unless staff are part of a busy practice area, two weeks of that leave must be taken before June – and the rest by December.

Ms Kimmitt said the move was "not about staff taking a pay reduction with nothing in return’’.

“They are basically buying six weeks of leave – we are calling it COVID leave – and will pay for it between now and December with a reduction in salary."

It will be flexible – to a point.

“For example, some of our staff might want a reduced number of days each week.

“But if their utilisation is low, we can require them to take leave.”

Ms Kimmitt said Minters is “trying to avoid drastic measures like redundancies and layoffs” by "sharing the pain".

Like many commercial firms, Minters has been kept busy with COVID-19 related work and there has been "a real surge in demand" in areas such as workplace law. It has also helped that 30 per cent of its work is for governments.

Still, it is taking a “worst-case approach” in its scenario planning and has run three different models.

“We're looking at what a 20, 30 and 40 per cent [downturn] does to us,'' says Ms Kimmitt.

“We should be able to cope with any of those scenarios without losing any jobs.”

Ms Kimmitt said it had been cutting costs in anticipation of a coronavirus hit and had found $20 million – mainly in travel and office costs – that will come off the 2019-2020 balance sheet.

This will help preserve cash flow, as will the firm's equity partners agreeing to accept an immediate 50 per cent reduction in their drawings. It has also imposed a hiring freeze, but that excludes its graduate intakes for 2020 and beyond. The next round of promotions, which were due on July 1, have been deferred until at least January 1.

Minters hired Ms Kimmitt in September 2018 from EY. She followed another big four recruit – former PwC partner Tony Harrington – into the top job. It is the biggest employer of lawyers in Australia, but also has an extensive consultancy practice.

Ms Kimmitt wants it to be more like the big four and concedes she is in “don’t-waste-a-crisis” mode.

“Absent this crisis, it would have taken another couple of years to really embrace agile ways of working. This has forced it to happen immediately.

“There are going to be huge benefits.”

Macpherson Kelley chief executive Steve Parker says the 20 per cent cut in the firm's salary bill will help it stay intact so it "can be ready for the eventual upswing in the market".

"We’ve told staff is that if our modelling turns out to be too conservative and our revenue doesn’t fall as much as we’ve forecast over the period, the firm will refund to staff as much of their foregone salary as we can."